


say you'll never harden to the world

by orphan_account



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/F, Guardian Angel AU, and also so many horrible things happened to renee she needed at least one good thing, basically every warning that applies to renee's/natalie's past, basically this fic deals with renee's past, bc........ fantasy..........., honestly she's just amazing, i have no idea what i'm doing?? so i'm sorry if the tags are wrong, none of the abuse is ever described or shown directly which is why i put 'referenced', references to abuse (physical and emotional and sexual), renee is so so strong to have made it through all that, she makes it through and she decides who she wants to be and strives to become that person, so please be careful if any of it triggers you, so that she's not completely alone with all that horribleness, there are some drugs too, with the addition of allison as her guardian angel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Of course it’s when the knife finally doesn’t feel awkward in her hand anymore that Allison shows up.Instead of the relaxed way she usually holds her wings, they’re pulled taut behind her back. Her arms are crossed in front of her chest and there’s a decidedly not pleased look on her face.“Hey,” Natalie says, not interrupting the sequence of stabbing moves she’s been practicing. She has no time for the way seeing Allison makes her feel.Safe – a joke. Not alone – Allison might not even be real. Cared about – impossible.Those kinds of emotions aren’t meant for someone like her in the first place, and she’s not going to indulge them.





	say you'll never harden to the world

Natalie sniffles and pulls on the hem of her dress, tugging harder each time until the fabric almost rips. She wants it to tear. She wants to destroy something, to feel powerful, in control. Like something she does can actually have an effect.

“No, you’re going to hurt the pretty dress!”

Natalie jolts, looking around wildly. There’s no one there. Where did the voice come from?

“Oops. You heard that, didn’t you? Please don’t tell them.”

Still no one. Is her mother doing this, somehow, or her mother’s newest boyfriend?

“Phew, I think I’m safe. They’d be so unhappy with me.”

Natalie scowls. Is this one of those imaginary friends she’s heard people talk about?

“Hello?” she asks cautiously.

“Damn!” the voice says. Then it gasps. “I’m not supposed to say that. Oh, they’re not going to be happy with me at all.”

“Are you imaginary?”

“A philosophical debate! I don’t have to take that class till next year, so… I don’t know.”

Natalie shifts, growing increasingly frustrated with the bodiless voice.

“Then are you invisible?”

A huff. “I’m perfectly visible, thank you very much. Well, to me, anyway. I don’t know about human eyes. You seem to be able to hear me well enough, though.”

“You’re… not human?” Natalie asks, her mouth hanging open slightly.

“Me, human? The audacity!” the voice says. “I’m… not quite sure what that means yet, but it gets thrown at me a lot by my teachers, so it feels fitting.”

“Teachers? Are you a kid like me?”

“What a horrible thought! I have existed for as long as you have existed, if that’s what you’re asking. We guardian angels come into being when a person’s life starts.”

“Guardian angel?” Natalie lifts her arm and looks at the bruises covering it. “You’re not doing a very good job, then.”

For the first time since the voice started talking, it becomes a bit quieter.

“I’m sorry. We can’t influence other people’s actions. Our powers and our responsibilities are limited, that’s one of the first things they teach us. I gave you that gut feeling this morning, though, to pause on the sidewalk so that the ball wouldn’t hit you on the head. And I drew your attention to the car driving way too fast so you didn’t cross the street just yet.”

“What did you do that for? If the car hit me, at least I wouldn’t have to be here.”

The voice gasps again. “Don’t say that, Natalie. Please.”

“You know my name? What’s yours?”

There’s a slight pause. “Allison.”

And just like that, Natalie can see her. She blinks as she looks at the girl – no, guardian angel – standing in front of her.

She seems even younger than Natalie, somehow. There’s something innocent about her face that Natalie’s not sure was ever there on her own. Her wings are brown like her skin and they glisten beautifully in the sunlight. It’s almost as if threads of gold are woven through the feathers. Or maybe those are just strands of Allison’s hair, her long curls the same golden colour.

“Wow,” Natalie breathes, and in that moment she feels more like the child she is than she has in a long time.

Allison smiles. “Thank you! That’s a nice reaction to get. And probably the only one I’ll ever get, too. They never answer when I ask them what happens to us when our humans leave, but…”

“You’re an angel.” Natalie’s still staring at Allison’s strong wings.

“That is correct,” Allison says, nodding. “Oh, I do like taking the role of teacher for once instead of always being the one who has to listen and learn.”

“How come I never noticed you before?”

Allison refuses to meet Natalie’s eyes.

“Well… you’re not supposed to know about us. I mean, legends are fine; encouraged, even. They make us feel appreciated and motivated when we start to doubt. But we’re never supposed to show ourselves.” Allison shakes her head. “Ever. So please, please never tell anyone, they’d… I don’t know what they’d do. But it probably wouldn’t be very nice.”

“But if we’re tied together, they can’t really hurt you, can they? There must be some Guardian Angel Code or something. Because hurting you would hurt me?”

Allison’s expression darkens. “I wouldn’t count on it. There are older, untethered guardian angels for precisely those reasons, for when your innate guardian angel needs to be replaced.”

Natalie frowns. “Wait. If you were a baby when I was a baby, how did you guard me then?”

“We’re not _humans_. I was a baby of sorts but I was perfectly capable of protecting you. Despite our many, many, _many_ lessons,” Allison says, scowling slightly at this point, “what we do is mostly instinct. Even baby guardians can do it, though slightly less elegantly, I’d say. It just happens. We don’t even need to be around you all the time for it to work – our guarding essence is with you, always.”

“So you get days off sometimes?”

Allison opens her mouth, then closes it again, considering.

“Things are a bit different here on our plane. In our dimension, so to speak. Space and time don’t affect us the same way they affect you, though our planes are tied together, creating an opening where your time seeps in and our powers seep out. That’s why time does pass here, and why we age.”

“That… sounds kind of scary,” Natalie says, pulling her legs close to her chest and resting her chin on her knees. She’s not quite sure she got all that, but she’s also not quite sure she cares enough to ask for clarification.

“It’s hard to express in your language, it doesn’t have the right words. You don’t speak ours, I presume?”

Natalie, who speaks English, some Spanish, and a little bit of Tagalog which her mother sometimes spoke to her when she was small – well, smaller – and the word ‘mother’ still seemed to mean something, shakes her head.

“Why are our dimensions tied together? Why can’t we just leave each other alone?” she asks.

Allison pauses. “Because that’s the way things are supposed to be.”

“Says who?”

“I… don’t know. Everyone? I don’t think we’d even exist if our planes weren’t connected, since we come into being when you do. Or is it you who come into being when we do? Or would neither of us exist without the other? None of the other angels have ever talked about this…”

Natalie hums. She’s glad for the distraction this conversation – imaginary or not – is providing, though thinking that, of course, reminds her of everything she wanted to forget.

There’s a buzzing sound and she belatedly realises that Allison is talking. Forcing her attention back into the here and now, she hears, “See? I’m not really on this plane.”

Allison walks through Natalie’s bed and then waves her hand through Natalie herself. Natalie feels nothing, not even a shiver.

“Stop it,” she says anyway, and Allison does. Natalie stares at her, waiting for her to start it up again, but she never does.

“Sorry.” Allison actually sounds sheepish.

“It’s okay,” Natalie says, and for once means it, too.

“I should go. This really isn’t something we’re supposed to do, so I probably can’t show myself ever again. But I’m here. And I’m doing my best.” A shadow passes over Allison’s face. “Even if it isn’t much. Isn’t enough.”

Before Natalie can say anything – not that she has any idea what she should say, – Allison has disappeared. Or become invisible again. Returned to her plane. Whatever.

Even though she isn’t quite sure what to make of this whole thing, it’s probably the most positive experience she’s had in a long time. Natalie holds onto that.

 

* * *

 

When Natalie is ten, she joins a gang. After her initiation, she lies there, not sure if she’ll ever be able to get up again. Everyone else has already left. It’s up to her to pick herself up off the ground and drag herself back to her mother’s place. She doesn’t know if she can.

“Natalie.”

Natalie tries to look up, but her black hair is hanging over her eyes and she doesn’t have enough strength to lift her hand to brush it away. Or maybe she’s just frozen.

“Natalie.” The voice wobbles. Allison’s voice. It’s been over a year, but Natalie never forgot. She couldn’t.

Every time she felt alone, she remembered that Allison was there, had to be there. They are tied to each other. There’s someone who’s always by her side, someone whose job boils down to taking care of her.

Later, she’ll wonder if she should feel guilty about that, being the reason Allison doesn’t have free control over her life. Or if it even feels that way to a guardian angel. In that moment, though, she selfishly clings to the notion of someone, at least, maybe caring. Even if they have to care. Even if that’s just their purpose of sorts.

“I don’t think I can get up,” Natalie says.

Maybe if she actually reconnects with her body, she’ll be able to move at least a little bit. If she settles back into her body, however, she’ll also have to deal with everything that happened. And dealing is something she’s determined to put off as long as she can.

“Natalie, I–” Allison breaks off, obviously unsure what to say. Natalie doesn’t think there’s anything to say in a situation like this.

“I’ll live,” she says, because she thinks she will. She has to.

“I think if you die, I might cease to exist too,” Allison says in a quiet voice.

“No pressure, then.”

Natalie tries to get up but gives up with a grunt. It’s not like she has anywhere to be. Her mother won’t even notice. Maybe her mother’s boyfriend will, wondering where his punching bag went. She huffs.

Pain roils inside her, trying to find an outlet. It won’t be tears and it won’t be screams and it won’t be curling in on herself. Natalie isn’t capable of any of those things at the moment.

“I wish I could help you.” Allison’s voice is so quiet that Natalie almost thinks she’s imagined it. “I hate our limits. I feel so useless right now. And if they find out I’ve shown myself to you, for the second time for that matter, oh, that can’t end well. But honestly, I don’t care. This isn’t right. This shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

“Be my guest, make a change. You’re an angel, shouldn’t you have a direct line to the higher ups or something?”

“That’s not how it works. We’re no more connected to anything than you. Imagine a society similar to yours in some ways, only we all have the same purpose and we aren’t born and we don’t die, we just come into being and disappear again, connected to our wards. Except for the Untethered.”

“How did they get untethered, anyway?”

There’s a pause. “I don’t know. But this isn’t right,” Allison repeats.

Natalie sighs. She lost all concept of right and wrong ages ago. There’s only what people do and what that means for her survival.

And this, this was necessary to join the Bloodhounds. It won’t happen again.

 

* * *

 

It does. One of them doesn’t stop. He uses his height and his muscles and his knives, and Natalie never stood a chance.

She hates the feeling of having no control over what’s happening with her body most of all. It’s hers. It belongs to her. Only she gets to decide what happens to it. She tries to cling to that.

And so she decides to beat him at his own game.

It’s not hard to gain access to knives in a gang, though she hasn’t quite figured out how to carry them on her at all times yet without being obvious.

At first, they feel strange in her hands. She doesn’t know how to hold a knife without it feeling awkward, but there’s no one she can ask to show her.

She’s on her own.

Figuring the library must have some books on wielding knives, she heads there. All of her bruises and wounds and scars are covered by her clothes, and yet she still garners some suspicious looks. It takes every ounce of restraint she has not to flip those people off.

Eventually, they turn their attention elsewhere, probably because of her age. They must assume that she’s an innocent child. It almost makes Natalie want to laugh; she’s never been either.

She walks up to one of the computers to search for books about knives. It’s almost too high up for her to reach, and she has to stand on her tiptoes. She’s stretching as far as she can, but her hands still barely reach the keyboard.

“Do you need any help, honey?”

Natalie looks over at the owner of the voice from where she’s all but hanging off the desk.

“No.”

The elderly librarian’s smile doesn’t drop at Natalie’s harsh tone.

“Don’t worry, it’s no trouble at all. In fact, it’s part of the job. What are you looking for, sweetie?

No adult ever truly wants to help. They put children into this world and then they neglect and abhor their own creations. Adults are all just like Frankenstein. And she, she is their monster.

But also, while her hands manage to barely reach the keyboard, she can’t see the keys, so maybe letting the librarian do their job isn’t such a bad idea.

“I need books on knives. How to handle them properly. Carry them, fight with them.”

The librarian blinks and adjusts their glasses.

“What for…?” they ask hesitantly.

“My father’s an actor.”

The lie rolls off Natalie’s tongue as easily as her own name. Easier, even, since she doesn’t associate it with the dozens of unpleasant situations in which her name has been shouted or whispered.

As far as she knows, it might not even be a lie. She knows nothing about the man whose genes make up part of her own, and she couldn’t care less about him if she tried. He is simply gone, so he leaves her alone. Natalie appreciates that. Her mother and her boyfriends, on the other hand…

“He needs to do some research for a role,” she continues. “They’re going to teach him, but he wants to come prepared.”

“Oh,” the librarian says, obviously relieved. Their smile returns. How gullible people who have barely suffered can be. “Let me check for you real quick.”

Natalie lets herself drop down from the elevated desk. She rubs at her arms where they held her up.

The librarian finds several relevant books and leads Natalie to the right section. They refuse to let Natalie carry them, instead doing it for her and setting them down on a table in the reading area.

“There, all set. Have…” They falter, frowning slightly while looking at the books that are all about knives and how to fight with them. “Fun.”

They leave, shaking their head and muttering about irresponsible parents. Natalie can’t stop a small snort from escaping her. They have no idea.

 

* * *

 

Natalie reads, and she learns. She can’t take the books back to her mother’s place, so she needs to remember. She studies the books in a way she’ll probably never study for school, reading especially relevant passages over and over again till she knows them by heart.

Since her mother spends most of her time at her boyfriend’s place at the moment, Natalie practices at her mother’s place. There’s nothing to eat and no money, so Natalie uses the angriness hunger makes her feel to fuel her determination. She goes through everything she’s memorised and tries to put it to good use.

Of course it’s when the knife finally doesn’t feel awkward in her hand anymore that Allison shows up.

Instead of the relaxed way she usually holds her wings, they’re pulled taut behind her back. Her arms are crossed in front of her chest and there’s a decidedly not pleased look on her face.

“Hey,” Natalie says, not interrupting the sequence of stabbing moves she’s been practicing. She has no time for the way seeing Allison makes her feel.

Safe – a joke. Not alone – Allison might not even be real. Cared about – impossible.

Those kinds of emotions aren’t meant for someone like her in the first place, and she’s not going to indulge them.

Allison’s foot taps on the floor, not making a sound on this plane. “What are you doing?”

“Learning to protect myself.” She throws Allison a look over her shoulder. “Since someone’s still not doing a very good job.”

Allison recoils like she’s just been punched. Maybe it feels like that to her. Verbal punches have long lost their effect on Natalie, courtesy of her mother. Physical punches, on the other hand? Natalie’s still working on that. One day her body will become just as dulled to pain as her emotions. That’s the goal. Her mother’s boyfriends have always been good practice, but their fists and feet are nothing compared to what happens in the gang.

“You know it doesn’t work like that,” Allison says quietly.

Natalie shrugs. What good is a guardian angel if they can’t protect you from what really hurts?

“When it happens, stay away,” Natalie says, refusing to look at Allison. She knows Allison will know what she’s referring to. “Don’t you dare come near, all right? When we first met you told me you didn’t always have to be around to get the job done, so don’t.”

“The job?” Hurt laces Allison’s voice, giving Natalie no other choice but to look at her. The angel’s wings are drooping and there is so much pain in her eyes that Natalie knows she should feel guilty, but all she feels is relief. Someone else is suffering, too. She’s not the only one.

She also knows she’s the reason Allison is upset, knows she dragged her down into this pit with her, and yet she feels no regret. She’s only glad to have the company of someone she actually doesn’t mind.

“Yes, the job. Your job. Guardian angel-ing and everything.”

“It’s not a job, Natalie. I don’t ‘guardian angel’, I _am_ a guardian angel.”

“Well, there’s not much of a point to you, is there? I don’t feel protected. I don’t feel safe. Why don’t you just quit and go do something else?”

Allison actually stomps her foot at that. Natalie stares at her, not sure if she can get away with laughing.

“You have no idea what we do! Instinct, intuition? So much of that is us desperately trying to save your lives. We remind you of important things you almost forgot, we try to help you figure things out. It all depends on whether or not you’ll listen. That is simply all we can do. Do you know how much it hurts when you–” Allison cuts off, her voice breaking.

“Don’t,” Natalie growls. “Don’t. Do not stay by my side, do not even come near me when it’s happening.”

Natalie couldn’t stand to have Allison in any way associated with that. Whenever her thoughts try to seek out Allison while it happens, for some sort of comfort, she forces them away. She’ll not taint this by in any way tying her to that.

This – talking to Allison – is the one thing in her life that isn’t as bad as the others, and Natalie will do anything to keep it that way. It gives her the feeling that maybe there’s something else out there, after all. Something better.

“Go live your angel life, spend time with your angel friends, do that homework you mention so often. Just stay away from me.”

Allison’s head drops slightly. “They tell me it’s not healthy. They tell me I shouldn’t get so invested, that I should simply do what I can and that the rest is out of my hands. But I don’t know what they expect! We are bonded together, we came to life at exactly the same moment. How can I… how can I not care?”

Natalie sighs. “None of this is your fault, Allison.”

Allison looks up. For once, Natalie can’t read Allison’s expression at all.

“I feel responsible. I feel like I have to be able to do something more to help you. ‘Guardian angel’.” Allison scoffs. “I’m powerless. I feel so… powerless.”

Something in Natalie coils so tight it hurts. Allison is truly in the pit with her now, only now neither of them can see a way out. Natalie doesn’t care. She’s going to claw her way up the wall of that pit, and she’s going to take Allison with her, leaving everyone who ever hurt them behind down there to rot.

And if all there is is the climb, if she never reaches the top, she’ll still take that over the bottom of the pit any day.

“Allison…” Natalie starts.

Allison shakes her head. “No. You’re right. You’ve been right all along. We don’t deserve to be called guardian angels if we can’t even properly protect anyone.”

Allison’s breath catches and she whirls around.

“They heard me. They’re not going to be happy about th–”

And then she’s gone.

Natalie stares at the space Allison just occupied, but no matter how long she looks, she doesn’t return.

Eventually, she starts feeling like there’s someone else in the room, like at any moment she’ll feel someone’s unwelcome hands on her skin, and she channels everything she feels about that into her knife work. It distracts her from having no idea what’s happening to Allison.

She’s going to reclaim this body as hers. She’ll protect herself where no one else ever tried. That man will die and the world will be a cleaner, better place for it. And if anyone else tries to touch her without her permission again, the last thing they feel will be a knife in their throat.

 

* * *

 

Natalie doesn’t like to look inside herself because all she sees there is devastation. A crater here, a stab wound there, some poison running through her veins, some ice so cold it turns her fingers blue, fire burning so hot it blisters her skin.

There are so many wounds that, with time, they’ve all coalesced into one. Working on dealing with them would mean prying them apart, and she isn’t sure she could survive that. Surely she’d bleed out. Or maybe cause an earthquake, leaving even what little is still whole in her as rubble in its wake.

It’s better for them all to just be one giant wound, too big to heal, too big to feel.

So the niggling feeling that maybe something happened to Allison and that part of it – okay, a lot of it – is her fault is just a drop in the ocean.

Only, unlike most other things, it won’t quite leave her alone.

Sometimes, alone in her room at night, she’ll whisper, “Allison,” as often as she dares. There’s never a response.

Whenever her instincts kick in, she wonders if it’s Allison or her residual powers or neither, and it’s just Natalie herself. With time, it simply becomes another thing she’ll never get an answer to.

 

* * *

 

She’s getting better with a knife. Aging is helping, since she’s growing, but she’s not counting on out-muscling that man, she’s counting on being faster.

Losing is not an option, so she won’t challenge him before she’s ready. And when she is, they will fight and he will finally die by her hand.

She’s twelve now, and when she starts to grow confident in her skills with a knife, she begins challenging other people to fights with lower stakes. She wins every time.

In addition to handling a knife, she gets better at hand-to-hand combat as well due to the endless fights happening both within the Bloodhounds and with other gangs. She doesn’t fight fair, but then, no one does. None of them even knows what fairness means. It’s fair enough to her as long as she comes out on top at the end. Even here, losing has consequences she’s not willing to face.

She’d like to say she stops thinking about Allison all on her own, but the truth is she doesn’t let herself think about her. _Don’t dwell on what you can’t change._ So she doesn’t. Or tries not to, anyway.

With every fight she wins, she can feel a part of her trying to coax her into challenging him right away. Surely she’s strong enough now. He’ll finally pay.

She suppresses that dangerous feeling of triumph and overconfidence every time. If she fights him and loses, the consequences will be a slow and painful death. She needs to win. She needs to be completely, a hundred percent sure that she more than stands a chance.

When she watches him fight, she imagines herself in his opponent’s shoes and tries to predict possible outcomes. Sometimes he notices her staring and she’s afraid he can see in her eyes that she’s plotting his death. If he can, he doesn’t seem to care. Or maybe he’s just certain that there’s no possible way she can win.

Good. Let him think that. Let him let his guard down. She’ll take every advantage she can get and she’ll fashion them into a noose custom-made for him.

 

* * *

 

The day she finally feels ready to fight him, fear mixes with elation inside of her.

She’s going to do it. She’s going to challenge him to a fight, and she’s going to give it her all until only one of them is left alive.

This could change everything, or it could be the end of everything. Either way, it will all be over.

She doesn’t acknowledge the fact that even simply the thought of death shortens her breath and makes her insides constrict.

That night in bed, she whispers, “I’m going to fight him tomorrow, Allison.” When there’s no response, Natalie sighs. “Wish me luck.”

She curls up on her side and closes her eyes, ignoring the empty, hollow feeling where her chest should be.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Natalie jolts upright, looking around, but Allison is nowhere in sight. “Allison? Allison, are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

She sits there silently for several minutes, barely even daring to breathe for fear of somehow drowning out Allison’s reply. But it never comes.

Reluctantly, she lies back down. Did she imagine Allison’s voice? No. No, she knows it was her. Allison is still here. She’s not gone. She’s still here and she still cares.

The thought of what her losing tomorrow could mean for Allison creeps up on her. She shoves it aside roughly and refuses to dwell on that, instead reminding herself that she won’t be alone during the fight, not really.

“Thank you,” she whispers into her mostly dark room, and that night she goes to sleep with more good thoughts in her head than in a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

He’s gone. He’s really, truly gone. He will never touch her again.

His blood is on her hands and yet she’s never felt cleaner.

Relief almost makes her knees buckle, but she forces herself to stay upright. There’s another feeling, too, and it takes her a while to recognise it as confusion.

After killing him, after managing to protect herself and re-stake her claim on her own body, she thought she’d finally feel free.

She doesn’t. She’s still stuck climbing up the wall of that pit, untouched by even a single ray of sunlight.

Natalie shakes her head, forcing those thoughts away. He’s dead. He’s gone. He’s never going to hurt her or anyone else ever again, and she’s the person who made sure of that. That has to be enough, for now.

She doesn’t register a single word of congratulations thrown her way. The others members of the Hounds might as well be shadows thrown by furniture at dusk, only real out of the corner of her eye.

When she gets back to her mother’s place, no one else is there. While Natalie appreciates not having to interact with her mother, in the end she’s just as tense whether she’s there or not.

If she’s there, Natalie always finds herself watching the door to her room, waiting for it to open and something to happen, especially if her mother’s boyfriend is there as well. If she isn’t, Natalie’s just as on edge, flinching at every slight noise, thinking it’s the key turning in the lock.

Relaxing isn’t something Natalie has ever been able to do.

She goes into the grimy bathroom, locking the door behind her. Her room has a lock too, but her mother took the key away after the first time Natalie tried to lock her and everyone else out.

The water sputters out of the shower head, cutting off every other second. After, Natalie towels off and stares at herself in the slightly fogged-over mirror.

She doesn’t look any different. She’s killed someone, freed herself, but she doesn’t look any different. The scars are still there, as are the bruises, reminding her that she’s easy to hurt.

Her fingers trail over the scars left by his knives. They’re trembling – Natalie refuses to acknowledge that, something she’s getting quite good at. She can feel his other marks, too, deep inside her skin, lodged in her brain, invisible to anyone but her.

They’re crawling underneath the surface. If she could just– She runs her nails over her arms once, then twice, then again, and again, and…

Taking a deep breath, she forces herself to stop. Slowly, she lowers her hands to her sides.

She thought… She thought that after she killed him, maybe it would lose its power over her. That she wouldn’t feel it anymore.

He’s dead, he’s gone, it shouldn’t matter now.

It shouldn’t.

But it does.

His body may have started to rot in the ground, but the marks he made on her remain. She’s a living, breathing testament that he existed, and that she hates most of all.

“You have no power over me,” she growls at her scars, not quite sure who she’s trying to convince. “You never did. You thought that I’m weak? Well, the only thing that got you is a knife in the gut.”

She hurries out of the bathroom and slams the door to her room behind her. After putting on her most comfortable clothes, she curls up on her lumpy mattress, staring at the stained wall.

“Hey.”

Natalie’s on her feet in a second, reaching for a knife that she’s not carrying at the moment. Her knives are all the way over by the door, buried in the heap of clothes she’d dragged out of the bathroom with her.

When she recognises Allison, her eyes go wide. She reaches out for her, only of course there isn’t anything there for her to touch. She watches her hand go through Allison’s arm and something shrivels up inside her.

Allison stares at where Natalie’s hand passed through her, then she looks up and smiles at her.

“You did it.”

Dropping back down onto her bed, Natalie sighs.

“You’re here.”

Allison looks away. “Sorry I haven’t been in touch. After they caught me last time… Let’s just say they did not approve.”

“Did they hurt you?” Natalie asks and feels her hands curl into fists.

Surprise settles awkwardly on Allison’s face. “No, nothing like that. They had me re-take a lot of classes and tried to drill the importance of not being seen into my brain. They were watching me really closely for a while, so I couldn’t risk even talking to you. I’m sorry, Natalie.”

Natalie closes her eyes. “Why? It doesn’t matter anyway.”

She isn’t quite sure why she just said that, and she wants to take it back almost instantly. When she opens her eyes again, Allison has one eyebrow raised and doesn’t look like she believed her for a second.

“It’s okay to care, you know.”

A short, brittle laugh escapes Natalie at that. “Oh, you have no idea. Don’t talk about things you couldn’t possibly understand.”

Allison looks like she wants to argue before she deflates. “All right.”

They’re silent for a while, but it’s a silence that niggles at Natalie, a silence she wants to fill.

“Can I ask you something?”

Allison nods.

“Did he have one too?” Natalie asks. When Allison just frowns in confusion, she continues, “A guardian angel.”

After hesitating for a moment, Allison nods again. “He did. Everyone does.”

“Unbelievable,” Natalie says, lying back and spreading her arms out on either side of her. “Fucking unbelievable.”

“Everyone has one,” Allison repeats quietly. “And you shouldn’t say that word.”

Natalie sits back up and lifts her eyebrows. “What, fuck? That one?”

Looking decidedly flustered, Allison says, “Yes, that one. Personally, I think it has its charm, but we’re not supposed to use it.”

“That’s nice. Tell them I don’t give a fuck. Your rules don’t extend to me, anyway.” She shakes her head. “What boring lives you must lead.”

Bristling, Allison opens her mouth to no doubt protest when Natalie cuts her off with, “What happened to his guardian angel?”

That visibly takes the fight out of her and Allison’s gaze drops to the ground. “They disappeared.”

Natalie hums and says, altogether way more casually than she feels, “Guess that would have happened to you instead if the fight had ended differently.”

“Yes.”

“Hm. Good that it didn’t, then.”

“I thought you didn’t care.” Allison’s voice actually sounds teasing.

Natalie feels heat rise to her cheeks. Determined not to let Allison notice, she asks, “What about the Untethered? When do they disappear?”

“I… don’t know.” Allison rubs her temples. “You know, before talking to you I never questioned half as many things as I do now. Maybe that’s why they don’t want us to talk to our wards.”

“Or maybe they’re just assholes, have you ever considered that?”

Allison gasps. “They’re angels!”

“So?”

“They’re… They… No, I–” Making a frustrated noise, Allison breaks off.

Natalie shrugs, feeling pleased with herself. Only when talking to Allison does she ever feel like this. Like maybe she’s actually having fun.

A more comfortable silence settles over them this time, until finally, Allison is the one to speak again.

“How do you feel?”

Natalie, who was staring at the ceiling, moves her gaze to Allison.

“Hm?”

“I mean…” Allison falters, then regroups. “Now that he’s dead.”

“Are you going to judge me?”

Allison shakes her head, such a serious expression on her face that Natalie has to suppress the urge to smile. She can’t do anything against the warm feeling that comes to life in her chest, though, and she’s not sure she’d even want to.

“Relieved,” is all she says, though it doesn’t even cover half of it. Allison nods.

Natalie lies down again and just watches Allison quietly. Allison lets her, watching her right back. They don’t speak another word until Allison has to leave, but Natalie feels like they learnt something about each other anyway.

All in all, it’s not a bad day.

 

* * *

 

Now that he’s finally dead, Natalie lets herself try drugs.

At first, she just wants to know if they’ll help at all, if maybe they’d make everything seem a little more tolerable. Turns out when they wear off they make everything even worse, and so she decides she simply won’t let them wear off, ever.

They make her see things, sometimes, disgusting things. Nothing really changes about anything, but many things are distorted or so clearly visible that she can see every single pore. She got used to the world being disgusting ages ago, so it’s nothing but amusing to her to have it all brought up to the surface, clear as day.

She still fights, for her body or their territory or for amusement, for the feeling of power it gives her, and she still always wins. She’s good at this. It almost feels good.

Allison’s worried, Natalie can tell, but joke’s on her, there’s nothing she can do. Sometimes, though, she can almost feel the part of her that wants nothing more than to never upset Allison again. It’s hard to connect to anything though, up where the drugs take her.

That’s the way she wants it.

That’s the way she needs it.

 

* * *

 

Natalie isn’t sure if she’s drunk or high or both, but it doesn’t matter. She’s convinced getting a tattoo is the best idea she’s ever had.

One of the members of the Bloodhounds, Diana, says she knows how to tattoo, so Natalie lies down on her stomach and makes herself as flat as she can, giving her better access to her back. Natalie’s lack of sobriety takes the edge off of not being able to see what’s going on in the room. She clutches a knife in her hand nonetheless.

“So, wings? You’re sure?”

“Mhm,” Natalie says, then giggles faintly. It doesn’t feel like it’s her who’s laughing, but at least her body is amused in her absence. “Like Allison’s.”

Diana pauses. “There’s no Allison in the Hounds.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t know her. She only appears to me, see? No one else. Just me.”

She can feel herself smiling, or at least she thinks she can. What’s her actual body and what’s in her head and where is the difference? The only certainty is that she’s never coming down again.

“Okay… Sure, whatever. Let’s just get this done. Don’t move, all right?”

When the tattoo gun’s needle first pierces her skin, Natalie can’t help but laugh. It kind of hurts, and somehow that’s the funniest of all.

While Diana works, Natalie drifts off, her consciousness taking a trip out of her body, floating around somewhere just out of reach. Awareness returns to her abruptly when someone smacks her butt. She jolts back into her body, freezes at first, then rolls over and jumps up, knife in hand.

Diana lifts her hands. “Hey, hey, cool it, it’s just me. Wanted to lure you back into the land of the living… or waking, anyway, so you could take a look at my work.”

Natalie lowers her knife and rolls her shoulders, feeling a bit stiff, then she walks over to the mirror. In front of it, she twists around to inspect her back.

Thanks to Allison, she knows first-hand what an angel’s wings look like, and it’s certainly not this. Instead, the wings on her back are gnarled and pointy and altogether jagged. A laugh escapes her. How fitting.

“Guess I got kicked out of heaven. Or maybe I never made it there in the first place.”

Diana shrugs. “Never said I was good, only that I’d get the job done.”

“And that you did. A dragon’s wings. A dragon who wants to be an angel. That’ll have to do.” Natalie sniffs. “I need another kick. You in?”

“Yeah, sure,” Diana says, grinning. “I’ll just cover your tattoo and then let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

When she’s alone in her room that night, she calls for Allison, over and over and over again until Allison finally shows up.

“Hey,” Natalie says, grinning.

Allison looks slightly uncomfortable. “Hello.”

“Look,” Natalie slurs, turning around and pointing at her uncovered back. “I have wings now, too. Less of an angel, though, I’ll leave that to you.”

Over her shoulder she sees Allison take a step closer, flexing her own, real wings absentmindedly.

Allison lifts a hand as if to touch the tattoo, then remembers and pulls back.

Natalie can’t look away from her. “You’re beautiful, Allison. Did you know? You’re the most beautiful person… angel… whatever I’ve ever seen.”

Allison tugs on one of her curls and looks off to the side.

“I know,” she says, but it comes out sounding like something completely different.

Natalie wants– No. It doesn’t matter.

 

* * *

 

Another time, Natalie’s sitting with her back to the wall staring at nothing when Allison shows up beside her.

Allison is quiet for a long while, and Natalie simply enjoys the feeling of sitting next to someone – well, more or less, even if they are on different planes – she feels truly comfortable around for a change.

“I found out about the Untethered today,” Allison says, her voice almost crossing over into whisper territory.

Natalie perks up and turns towards her. “So what’s up with them?”

Allison hesitates, her eyes on her hands. “They’re the opposite of me, I guess you could say. They are angels who cared so little for their wards that the connection just… severed. Some say their ward was in so much pain that they eventually became numb to it. Some say they just couldn’t take it anymore and worked at themselves until they no longer cared. Some say they never cared at all.”

Natalie stares at her, and maybe Allison feels it even through the planes because she looks up. Years ago, the pain in Allison’s eyes made Natalie feel relieved that she wasn’t the only one suffering. Now, she wishes she could fight whatever’s hurting Allison and then make sure it never can again.

“You know,” Allison says, and her voice sounds bitter, something Natalie’s never heard from her before, “they always warn us about caring too much. But no one ever says a word about caring too little.”

“Allison…”

Allison shakes her head. “The Untethered have their place, their importance, of course. If something – I still don’t know what even could – happens to us while our ward’s still alive, they take our place. They can get the ‘job’, as you so eloquently put it, done. But…”

Natalie thinks she knows where Allison is going with this. “It doesn’t feel right?”

“Yes!” Allison turns fully towards her. “You understand, don’t you? None of the angels understands, no one… They think I’m too invested in my ward, that it’s not right. But the opposite is? And is it right that we feel useless while our wards suffer at the hands of someone else? That we can’t do anything? What kind of protection is this, and how can there be protection without caring?”

Natalie just sits there, mouth wide open. “Um… I…”

Allison sighs. “Sorry, it’s just so… frustrating. It feels like they’re all getting it wrong, you know? But there’s nothing I can do to make them see that. I’m not sure they even listen when I speak. They don’t want to hear anything but their own voices.”

With no idea how to help her, Natalie feels absolutely useless. With Allison on another plane, there’s nothing she can do. If she could, she’d go over there and make those angels listen to Allison somehow, but…

Finally, she says, “I think you should trust what you know to be right, no matter what they say. They might think everything’s fine because the way things are works for them, but it obviously doesn’t for you. Caring or not caring, there isn’t just one way to do anything that they get to force on everyone. And if they can’t see that, well, then they suck.”

Natalie shrugs, then continues, “Maybe there’s even some angels who see it the same way as you, only they also feel like they aren’t heard so they’ve stopped trying. You could ask around a bit.”

Allison looks at her with wide eyes for a moment, then those eyes squeeze shut and she starts laughing breathlessly, her whole body shaking with it.

“You are the best,” Allison tells her, gasping. “The absolute best. They _do_ ‘suck’, don’t they?”

Natalie freezes.

 _You are the best._ Natalie holds onto that with everything she has, not letting it slip through her fingers even when, later, the drugs take her up again, rendering everything far away as if she were nothing but a spectator to someone else’s life.

Sitting there in that moment, watching Allison laugh, knowing it’s because of her… Natalie thinks she’s never felt better.

 

* * *

 

Allison shows up just as Natalie’s preparing to take something. She’s not even quite sure what at this point, and she doesn’t care, either.

Despite the look on Allison’s face, Natalie refuses to feel guilty, though something uncomfortable churns in her gut.

Allison looks at her quietly for a few moments. Then says, “You shouldn’t do this anymore.”

“Oh, yeah?” Natalie’s voice comes out sounding far too casual and for the first time since she’s known her, anger at Allison bubbles up inside of her. “Well, you come over here to this plane, and you inhabit a human body, and you live through my experiences, and _then_ you tell me I should stop doing this. Maybe then I’ll actually give a shit about your opinion.”

It all comes out as one long, uninterrupted string of words and leaves Natalie gasping for breath. She’s so furious she feels like it’s going to tear her apart. No one can tell her what to do, no one can make her do anything. Never again.

“I think that’s what happens to the lost guardian angels,” Allison says, and just like that Natalie’s anger shrinks down to cinders as confusion takes its place.

“What?”

With a sigh, Allison leans her head back against the wall. Or pretends to, since she’s not actually physically here. Natalie still hasn’t quite wrapped her head around that.

“You were right. There are other angels who share my opinion, and in talking to them, I got the feeling that the angels who have to be replaced by the Untethered come here. To your plane.” She looks over at Natalie out of the corner of her eye. “To live a human life.”

Natalie stares at her, at a complete loss for words. Allison returns her gaze to the ceiling.

“I can’t stop thinking about it. What it would be like. If it would hurt. What about me would change.”

All of a sudden, Natalie’s mouth is dry. She attempts to swallow, but there’s nothing. The thought of Allison being here, actually, physically being here…

“If I would remember you.”

Natalie’s eyes, which were fixed on a stain of unknown origin on the carpet that will probably remain there until said carpet is nothing but ash, snap back up to Allison.

She opens her mouth, but her throat is too dry for anything to come out. After swallowing a few times, she tries again.

“You might forget me?”

Allison shrugs, as if remembering Natalie isn’t something that matters. As if forgetting her wouldn’t mean anything. Maybe to Allison, it wouldn’t.

Everything in Natalie grows first cold, then hot, as anger at how much this hurts her, how much it could hurt her, takes pain’s place.

The thought that, no matter what degree of real Allison is or isn’t, someone actually cares has helped Natalie keep climbing, has helped her not write her future off completely, has led her to believe that maybe, just maybe, despite everything that’s happened and is still happening, maybe one day, she’ll actually be able to bounce back. To be at least some semblance of okay.

Because if someone as amazing as Allison can care about her, other people are bound to be able to too, right? She just hasn’t met them yet.

To have that certainty that Allison cares, that she will always care, ripped from her…

“Hello? Natalie?” A brown hand waves in front of her face. “I said, you’d just have to find me, then.”

Natalie blinks. Allison’s words take a while to sink in, but when they do, her heart may or may not skip a beat.

“I’m not even thinking of coming to your plane if you don’t promise to at least try to take care of me. I’d be like a baby! And not like our amazingly efficient kind, your useless human ones. Not physically, of course, but I might not know anything. I’d be totally lost.”

Warmth blooms in Natalie’s chest and its vines spread throughout her body.

She cares about Allison. She cares what Allison thinks of her, she cares if Allison’s okay or not, she cares. Allison is probably the only person… guardian angel… being that Natalie cares about, and she hadn’t consciously realised that until precisely that moment.

“And besides, I couldn’t leave you alone. Not a good idea, that. The Untethered that would come to fulfil my guardian angel duties would probably be one of the really boring ones, too, never stepping out of line. We can’t have that, now, can we?”

Natalie looks at her, pretending not to notice the nervousness in her voice. Despite how obviously unsure Allison feels, her dark brown eyes are warm, as they have always been.

Maybe the reason she’s never really doubted Allison’s existence is because nothing so beautiful could have stemmed from her imagination.

She sighs and looks away. “I think you should do what feels right for you.”

To have someone like Allison exist next to her in this world, on this plane – Natalie thinks that’s more unbelievable than any angel could ever be.

 

* * *

 

The drugs make her careless, eventually. Maybe they always did and she just got lucky before.

When she gets caught at fifteen, what she hates the most about it is that she’s actually surprised. As if feeling invincible ever causes anything but your downfall.

Her lawyer digs into her home life, cooks up a story that’s more truth than Natalie would like and blames many of Natalie’s transgressions on her abusive, neglectful parental figures.

On top of that, Natalie sells her– no, _the_ gang out, and she’s rewarded with one measly year in juvie while no one else she’s implicated gets off that easy.

The thought of being locked up crawls over her skin, leaving goose bumps and nausea in its wake, but withdrawal takes up most of Natalie’s attention.

She has never needed anything as much as she needs another hit, and she almost claws her skin off when it just won’t come.

She’s still climbing the wall of the goddamn pit and for the first time, she’d actually consider letting herself fall back down if only that meant that this craving that ties everything inside her up into knots and then rips her open for all the world to see would go away.

Even breathing becomes a chore, every breath a choked-back shout, a potential sob. She feels sick all the time, and hatred for every single thing in existence churns hotly in her stomach until it feels like that’s all she’s made of.

Allison doesn’t show herself during this time. It might be the only thing Natalie is glad about.

 

* * *

 

As the days or maybe even weeks pass, her hands stop shaking. She holds them up in front of her face, staring at their stillness.

“You can do this,” Allison’s voice reaches her from seemingly nowhere.

Natalie cradles her hands to her chest and nods.

The want is still there, but maybe that will fade, too, with time.

 

* * *

 

There’s juvie, and the trials, and then the message that her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were killed by members of her old gang in prison, in retaliation for Natalie snitching.

She feels nothing.

She thinks they expect her to care at least a little bit, and she considers pretending to so that they have a better opinion of her, but then shrugs. She doesn’t regret a single thing and she won’t taint this by pretending to.

What she also doesn’t do is tell them that she hated her mother and every single one of her boyfriends, that there’s a certain feeling of peace that comes with knowing they’re no longer in this world. That she’ll never have to see them again.

She might be in some way responsible for their deaths, but to Natalie, that feels something like justice.

 

* * *

 

In juvie, she’s rarely completely alone, so talking to Allison is only possible in whispers and short exchanges.

Sometimes, Allison shows up and sits next to her quietly. Her mere presence – such as it is – makes Natalie feel more comfortable. She’s long since stopped fighting that.

No one else seems to be able to see Allison. Natalie’s theory is that everyone can only see their own guardian angel; the possibility that she’s imagined Allison all this time after all occurs to her, but she shrugs it off. It doesn’t matter. Allison is here, and real or not – whatever ‘real’ even means – that’s all that counts.

The truth is, she’s glad that she’s the only one who can see Allison. It feels good to have a part of her life – here, where everything’s on display – that belongs only to her and no one else, something that no one can take away.

 

* * *

 

When her year is up, she gets put into foster care.

The homes become a blur. She does everything she can to mess things up with the families, to make life hard for them. They’ve had it so easy, they don’t even know.

She waits for someone to ask her why she’s doing this, to try to understand her, get to know her. No one ever does.

Natalie can’t say she’s surprised.

She won’t risk caring about someone only to have them decide to discard her later. She will not be the one who gets hurt here.

“Natalie,” Allison says one night, in the third foster home so far, “have you ever considered giving them a chance?”

“No,” Natalie says. She won’t lie to Allison. When Allison opens her mouth, Natalie holds up a hand. “No again. I don’t want to hear it.”

Allison sighs and respects that. Natalie wishes she could touch her, but that’s neither here nor there.

 

* * *

 

Two years and five other foster homes later, bringing her total up to eight, she meets Stephanie Walker.

Somehow, it’s not like it was with the others. Walker is different. She seems to actually care about Natalie, about her as a person, about who she is and who she is deeper down still. About who she wants to be.

She doesn’t see Natalie’s destructiveness and think, ‘Get her away from me!’, she sees it and thinks, ‘How can I help you?’

And Natalie needs help, she really, truly does. And maybe, just maybe, Stephanie Walker could be the one person she’ll let try. She’s on the cusp of eighteen. This might be her last chance.

The first night in Walker’s home, Natalie sits on the bed, her back to the wall, and just stares at everything surrounding her. She didn’t know someone’s home could be welcoming, but she has no other word for the feeling she gets here.

Allison shows up beside her, her smile so bright that Natalie almost has to look away because she doesn’t know what to do with what happens inside her when she sees it.

“She’s good, Natalie. I can feel it. She’s good.”

Reluctantly, Natalie nods. “Maybe.”

“You’ll be safe and loved here, I know it.” Allison sighs. “Finally. You deserve that so much.”

Something in her twists painfully while she’s looking at Allison. This is enough. This needs to be enough.

Suspicion creeps up on her, distracting her from all other thoughts. She frowns.

“Did you have something to do with her hearing about me?”

Allison tries to go for an innocent, surprised look, but her grin is too wide for that to be believable.

“Who, me?”

“Allison,” Natalie says, and something in her voice makes Allison’s grin crumble in on itself. She leans forward.

“No, that was all her. We can’t influence how anyone feels, you know that. We can only draw attention to certain things, that’s all.”

Natalie hums and lets it drop. Allison shifts.

“Natalie…” she starts. It takes long enough for her to continue that Natalie looks over at her, raising her eyebrows. “I think I’m going to do it. Come here, I mean.”

Everything freezes, Natalie herself included.

“What do you think about that?” Allison sounds so unsure of herself that Natalie can only stare at her. “I didn’t mean it back then when I said you had to take care of me, of course. I just… I felt like I couldn’t risk it because I wanted to be there for you. I still do. I just think that you don’t necessarily need me anymore now, if something goes wrong.”

Natalie’s throat feels like a spout with too much water trying to come out at once, so that all she manages is a weak wheeze, waiting for the eventual explosion.

She hasn’t let herself think about Allison coming here since the time they first talked about it. It scares her, in a way. She doesn’t know what it will change, because there’s no way it won’t change anything.

What if Allison forgets her? What if she can’t find Allison? What if they don’t get along as humans? What if, with her new, fleeting human emotions, Allison realises that Natalie isn’t interesting enough, is too much of a mess, and stops caring about her? What if Allison dies? What if the reason no angel talks about the ones who came here is that they all stop existing when trying to traverse planes?

What if Allison dies. The thought sinks into her like a stone into a pond. Allison might think Natalie doesn’t need her anymore, and Natalie doesn’t know how to tell the difference between want and need, but losing Allison isn’t something she’s sure she can come back from.

“Do you know how?” is what she hears herself asking instead.

The tension in Allison’s shoulders relaxes and her wings flap once, then twice.

“I think so.”

“Will you lose your wings?”

Allison considers that for a moment. “Yes, probably. There’s next to no knowledge about all this, it’s very much a guessing game.”

“If you come here, does that mean you get an Untethered as your guardian angel?”

Surprise shows on Allison’s face, then she grimaces. “I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe? It’s not like I’ll notice them anyway.”

“Will you…” Natalie pauses to take a deep breath. “Will you lose your memories?”

“Natalie,” Allison says and holds eye contact. “I don’t know. But I want to try this. Being a guardian angel is good in its own right, but it’s just not what I want. I can’t stand the thought of only ever being who someone else wants me to be. I need to live for me.”

Natalie growls in frustration. “What if you don’t make it, Allison? What if you get lost in the void between the planes or whatever? You’d be gone! You’d never get to be anything anywhere ever again.”

She doesn’t realise how loud she’s gotten until Allison holds a finger a short distance away from her lips. The warning is clear: if Walker hears this, it won’t go over well.

“I also want to come here to be actually, physically close to you,” Allison says, more softly than Natalie has imagined possible. “You’re so important to me, I can’t even–” She cuts herself off, leaning back from where she curled forward into Natalie’s space.

“And what about me?” Natalie asks, her voice wobbly and on the verge of breaking. She hates that, but not as much as the thought of losing Allison. “You think you’re not important to me? Allison, you’ve been the only good thing in my life, my whole life. I can’t– I don’t want to lose you.”

Allison reaches out a hand and lets it hover close to Natalie’s cheek. “You won’t.”

Natalie shakes her head. “You don’t know that.”

“I don’t. But I believe.”

“Where on earth would you even show up? How am I supposed to find you?”

“I don’t know,” Allison says again, and when Natalie scowls in response, she smiles. “We’ll just have to trust it’ll all work out.”

Natalie scoffs. “Yeah, that’s not happening. I know better.”

“Trust me, then?”

Damn her. “That’s not fair.”

Allison’s eyes dance. “Never said I played fair.”

“I took you for the type.”

Allison laughs. “Oh, you have a lot to learn about me.”

“Well…” Natalie hesitates, then figures to hell with it. “I hope I get the chance.”

“You will,” Allison assures. “But, just in case…” She leans forward until her face is no more than a hair’s breadth away from Natalie’s, and Natalie all but forgets how to breathe. “Let’s pretend at least once, what do you say?”

“Okay,” Natalie hears herself say, and then she leans forward to touch… nothing. Just air.

She pulls back, her cheeks heating up. Then she laughs, embarrassment looking for release, and a few seconds later, Allison joins in.

When they quiet back down, Natalie takes a shaking breath.

“You have to promise me not to die.”

And though they both know it has no power over the outcome, Allison leans back into Natalie’s space with a smile and says, “I promise.”

 

* * *

 

Instead of letting her worry for Allison consume her and letting her life stagnate as a result, Natalie focuses on Walker. On Stephanie.

She’s… Natalie didn’t know that an adult like that existed.

The more she spends time with her, the more she gets the feeling that maybe, just maybe, she has something of a guardian angel about her.

She shakes that thought off. It’s not like it’s something she can ever bring up in conversation anyway, and she’s probably just searching for hope for Allison – and herself – wherever she looks.

She becomes Renee, and no matter who she is or maybe always will be inside, she decides on who she wants to be.

In front of the mirror one day, she tries on a smile. It doesn’t quite fit yet.

With time, it will.

With time, who she wants to be is who she will become.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! if you felt any kind of way about this and feel up to it, it would be very lovely of you to leave a comment
> 
> the title is from tracy chapman's song "tell it like it is". everyone pls listen to her music if you haven't heard it before, her voice is my favourite voice in the world i think?? and her lyrics are poetic and heartbreaking and honest  
> i haven't heard all of her songs but there isn't a single bad song among those i've heard. if you want any recs i will honestly gladly talk about tracy chapman's music for hours. but if you need to be convinced by her voice pls just listen to "behind the wall". it's ~only~ her voice, no backing anything, and......... wow
> 
> the allison/renee tag needs more content and renee needs more attention and i decided to contribute......... this. this is of course only my take on renee's backstory, i'm sorry if i fucked it up somehow  
> i now understand why no one (to my knowledge) has written about her backstory....... honestly so much horrible stuff happened idk if i should have even written this?? i mean, it did happen, and it's part of what made renee who she is now..... but still idk. i mean, renee deserves attention, but also so many good things tbh, and this fic mostly focuses on the time in her life when things were really bad. but also how she made it through and how strong she is, i think?
> 
> i had to leave off at that point bc i just don't know enough about any religion to write about how it saved someone and helped them through a lot. renee even quotes the bible in son of nefes and all my knowledge about that is based on pop culture, so yeah.......  
> but!!!! trust that things get better from here on out. and allison, well, renee's gonna see her again, rest assured
> 
> i....... don't know if they're in character?? bc i mean they're kids at the start and then renee hasn't gotten to the point where she's decided to become renee yet, and........  
> allison is trickier. i feel like bc she's an angel (and again, a kid at the start, even though she doesn't see it that way) she just has to be a bit different?? but i hope she's still somewhat recognisably herself....... my hc is that as a human allison is gonna be the biggest fan of swearing tbh, and renee's and allison's roles will be reversed in some ways?? idk sorry if it's all weird
> 
> also sorry abt the lack of overt romance (i mean...... i'm a horrible judge of that. i actually think this is kinda romantic?? idk). it's just, they were so young for most of it, and with everything renee went through, and then they weren't on the same plane either. if i ever get around to finishing the au where renee's a witch and allison runs away from her parents, gets lost in the woods and ends up on renee's doorstep, there will definitely be that. and actual kissing. also all the foxes!!
> 
> there are...... three sentences i think that i rly, rly like. but the rest is honestly just ??????????? i have no idea if this is bad or good or awkward (probably since i wrote it........) or whatever, i just........ cannot tell anymore. i think the beginning is probably weird and maybe there's too much exposition or?? but it is what it is now
> 
> oh no this got so long, i'm pretty sure that's not how it's supposed to be...... if anyone made it through the story and all the way here i honestly feel like i owe you. thank you so much and lots of love to you, always ♥


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